Tlie Rot in Sheep. 
73 
slime and dirt on it, u liicli brings them under the rot ; for nothing 
rots a sheep or any other creature more than such slime and dirt," 
VAVis is more distinct in his statements about the injurious 
effects of "plaise-worms" — flukes {see fifj. 2.) — in the liver, than any 
English author prior to his time whose writings we have perused. 
Ho narrates a case of a very large number of these entozoa being 
found in the liver, and, after describing their size and other pecu- 
liarities, proceeds to give the following hypothesis of their pro- 
duction : — " These destructive worms arc, 1 suppose, bred by the 
corruption of blood, for the blood must be first vitiated by the 
sheep's feeding on unwholesome grass or weeds, or by poverty or 
otherwise, from whence are bred the seeds or eggs of plaise- 
worms, which, circulating with the blood, make their nest or 
lodgment in the fountain ; that is to say, in the liver of the 
beast, where, if they cannot be killed, they will eat till they kill 
the sheep." 
It will be unnecessary in this place to combat Ellis's views of 
fortuitous generation, or to expose his errors of physiology, our 
object being rather to show that a distinct opinion existed in his 
time, that rot was caused from flukes in the biliary ducts. 
Passing by several authors of minor importance, whose works 
contain nothing original on this subject, we come in the next 
place to the celebrated Bakewell, of whom it is said that he often 
produced the rot at will in his sheep, to prevent any attempt being 
made to use them for breeding purposes subsequently to their sale. 
We find the authority for this statement, as well as an account of 
Bakewell's opinion of the cause of the disease, in Arthur Young's 
Farmer s Tour in the East of England, vol. i. 
Young thus writes : — " Relative to the rot in sheep, Mr. Bake- 
well has attended to it more than most men in England. He is ex- 
tremely clear, from long attention, that this disorder is owing 
solely to floods — never to land being Avet only from rains which 
do not Jioic, nor from springs that rise. He conjectures that the 
young grass, which springs in consequence of a flood, is of so 
flashy a nature that it occasions this common complaint. But, 
whether this idea is just or not, still he is clear in his facts, that 
floods (in whatever manner they act) are the cause. 
" Perhaps the most curious experiment ever made in the rot of 
sheep, is what he has frequently practised. When particular parcels 
of his best-bred sheep are past service, he fats them for the butcher ; 
and, to be sure that they shall be killed, and not go into other hands, 
he rots them before he sells, which, from long experience, he can do 
at pleasure. It is only to flow a pasture or meadow in summer, 
and it invariably rots all the sheep that feed on it the following 
autumn. After the middle of May, water flowing over land is 
certain to cause rot, whatever be the soil. 
" He has acted thus with several of his fields, which, without 
